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Spyware is a piece of software installed on your PC, normally without your knowledge. It is often silently installed along with other software you intended to install. The purpose of spyware is to either collect information on you, track your internet surfing, or plague your PC with pop-up ads.

Spyware is also a way for shareware authors to make money from their free product, other than by selling it to the users. There are several large media companies that offer them to place banner ads in their products in exchange for a portion of the revenue from banner sales. This way, you don't have to pay for the software and the developers are still getting paid. If you find the banners annoying, there is usually an option to remove them, by paying the regular licensing fee.

There are also many PC surveillance tools that allow a user to monitor all kinds of activity on a computer, ranging from keystroke capture, snapshots, email logging, chat logging and just about everything else. These tools are often designed for parents, businesses and similar environments, but can be easily abused if they are installed on your computer without your knowledge. These tools are perfectly legal in most places, but, just like an ordinary tape recorder, if they are abused, they can seriously violate your privacy.

We recommend you use Lavasoft's software to scan and protect yourself from spyware.

Visit the Lavasoft Website